Day 751

Ceasefire III, Day 17

When the rains come
will they wash away
the smell of death?  The dust
our children’s bodies
have become?  The scum
of brutality that lines
the streets that remain?
When the rains come
will they take with them,
as they flood the gullies,
our nights of horror,
waking to flames, explosions,
racing to see if those we love
are still breathing?
Will they take with them
charred faces, fragments
of screams, flattened memories?
Will they cleanse our hands
of the weight of corpses
and water the neighborhoods
at their roots, so they
can grow back?  Buildings.
Avenues.  Trees.